Less than 24 hours after an expanded stakeholders meeting on gridlock and restoration of law and order in Apapa, trailers have continued to occupy major routes leading to the port city, creating discomfort for other road users.
Expectation was that after the meeting attended by major stakeholders, including the Nigerian ports authority (NPA), Nigerian Customs Service, truck owners associations, maritime workers unions, shippers council, manufacturers associations, federal roads safety corps, LASTMA, etc, there would be some sanity on the roads the next day.
But that is not happening, meaning that the stakeholders were not sincere with themselves. “It’s either they did not say what they meant or did not mean what they said,” a motorist who was caught up in the gridlock web noted.
Dera Nnadi, a customs officer, who was at the stakeholders’ meeting on Tuesday, was blunt enough when he told the gathering that “for so long as we continue to address the symptoms and not the real issue in Apapa, for so long will the gridlock persist.”
The real issues in Apapa problem border on inefficient port operation, corruption on the road, and the concentration of port activities in Lagos when four other ports are idle in other parts of the country.
Another major issue has to do with lack of a rail system that is dedicated to the ports. Nnadi added that, in the immediate term, contractors handling the roads reconstruction, especially the Apapa Oshodi Expressway, have closed up most access roads for motorists.
CHUKA UROKO
